


It's a Tricky Thing

by RicePaper_Fox



Series: The Art of Alliances [2]
Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 13:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13147776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RicePaper_Fox/pseuds/RicePaper_Fox
Summary: "It’s that moment that Schuldig knows that the ally he wants is the one that will personally remove the eyes of those who would betray their own."





	It's a Tricky Thing

**Author's Note:**

> I've been sitting on this sequel for about three and a half years. Maybe I'll start connecting the ones that were meant to be.
> 
> So Merry Fuckin' Christmas.

Four years, and his memories are fragmented and not all his own.

 

Schuldig remembers his grandmother’s suicide. The act of it is glorious in hindsight; he knows, as she did, that they were going to come back for her. She died on her own terms.

 

He remembers the blind terror at the prospect of the train, images popping up unbidden of rank, cramped space. Thoughts that didn’t belong to himself or his grandmother. Memories within memories. They were founded in the past, but not true to the present. It was a normal passenger train to Munich, and from there a car into the mountains.

 

~ ~ ~

 

He had been examined along with a room full of others.

 

At one point, a pair of older men had stopped in front of him, laughing between themselves. One, his eyes a piercing blue, had taken his jaw roughly in his hands and turned it back at forth.

 

“The Childcatcher said his grandmother suffered during the T4 program. But you said he knows the camps,” he said to his companion. “So? Which do you think? Jew or gypsy?”

 

The other laughed. “With that coloring? Gypsy.” The man seemed to be searching Schuldig’s face, but he knows, somehow, that he’s really searching his mind. “His grandfather was also one of us. Shame we didn’t find him.”

 

The first one dropped his hand. “Is it a shame? Perhaps, because we didn’t find his grandparents, they found each other. And now we have  _ this _ creature.”

 

“You and your possibilities.”

 

It was the first time Schuldig had ever met a prescient.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Schuldig knows that it’s important to have allies in Rosenkreuz. But it’s a little hard to make friends when there are thirty telepaths fighting over a single heater in the dormitories. Winter is in full force, and there are mornings when he can see his breath. 

 

Schuldig know that he should make allies. He knows how he  _ can _ make allies. Some of the other boys have started huddling for warmth, and Schuldig knows what that leads to.

The ultimate irony, though, is he doesn’t  _ want _ to make allies, not with other telepaths, because he can’t stand other telepaths. It’s a consequence of being the best that he can’t stand to see his own arrogance mirrored back at himself by those of lesser ability. And anyway, the politics within the department are complicated, and constantly in flux. Two boys could be lovers one day, at war the next. He won't take a chance on someone who is liable to stab him in his sleep.

 

~ ~ ~

 

There’s been a murder, which in itself isn’t unusual in Rosenkreuz. What is unusual is that it happened within the dormitories shared by the prescients and clairvoyants. Perhaps it’s a result of the passivity of their abilities, but they rarely ever kill by their own hands, much less one of their own.

 

The headmaster seems convinced it was a prescient that did so. They stand in a line the middle of the mess hall--there’s only twenty of them total, less than a tenth of the school population--stone faced an silent. It’s a show of solidarity that no others possess, that not a single one will point the finger. Telepaths are known to stab each other in the back, or the gut, for less.

 

“It’s admirable,” the headmaster says. “I will give you that. But  _ someone will go down for this. _ Either you name who it was, or I will choose for you.”

 

There’s continued silence. The headmaster paces for a moment, before stopping at the two eldest.

 

“You are graduating to field work this year, yes? Got your pseudonyms all picked out and everything? Well, not now. Unless one of you wants to give up who did it.”

 

There’s an hushed argument between them; at one point Schuldig hears one hiss  _ We take care of our own, you know that. _

 

“It was Athy,” the other one announces, suddenly.

 

“No!”

 

“I’m pushing twenty-three, I’m not staying here any longer!” he says. “He’s seven years old, he didn’t even mean to do it!”

 

The anger and betrayal burning through the group is so strong that even Schuldig, with his limited empathy, can feel it. The headmaster nods, sympathetically.

 

“You did right, Liemann.”

 

Schuldig thinks that perhaps it’s true that there is no real loyalty in the world.

 

A week later, screams ring out in the night. The prescient who gave up one of his own, Liemann, is found with empty eye sockets. Alive, but totally useless for most field work. It would have taken at least three others to do such a thing, and none of them were seven years old. 

 

It’s that moment that Schuldig knows that the ally he wants is the one that will personally remove the eyes of those who would betray their own.

 

The prescients remain silent, but Schuldig sees the blood under nails of one of the older ones.


End file.
